LITTLE  BLUE  BOOK  NO.  AQA 
Edited  by  E.  Haldeman- Julius  TC^TT 


Negro  Life  in 
New  York's  Harlem 

A  Lively  Picture  of  a  Popular  and 
Interesting  Section 


Wallace  Thurman 


iEx  ICtbrtB 

SEYMOUR  DUR 


'Tort  nt&uw  ^m/ferelam-  oj>  Je  Manhatarus 


• 


LITTLE  BLUE  BOOK  NO.  AQA 
Edited  by  E.  Haldeman-Julius     jl  J/ 

Negro  Life  in 
New  York's  Harlem 

A  Lively  Picture  of  a  Popular  and 
Interesting  Section 

Wallace  Thurman 


HALDEMAN-JULIUS  PUBLICATIONS 
GIRARD,  KANSAS 


.'fit  3 

Wm 


Copyright, 
Haldeman-Julius  Company 


\ 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OP  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 

Page 


I. 

A  Lively  Picture  of  a  Popular  and  In 

'  5 

II. 

200.000  Negroes  in  Harlem  

12 

III. 

17 

IV. 

24 

V. 

VI. 

House  Rent  Parties,  Numbers  and  Hot 

Men   

40 

VII. 

53 

VIII. 

Nesro  Journalism  in  Harlem  

5S 

IX. 

63 

NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

L  A  LIVELY  PICTURE  OF  A  POPULAR  AND 
INTERESTING  SECTION 

Wallace  Thukman 

Harlem  has  been  called  the  Mecca  of  the  New 
Negro,  the  center  of  black  America's  cultural 
renaissance,  Nigger  Heaven,  Pickaninny  Par- 
adise, Capitol  of  Black  America,  and  various 
other  things.  It  has  been  surveyed  and  inter- 
preted, explored  and  exploited.  It  has  had  its 
day  in  literature,  in  the  drama,  evep  in  the 
tabloid  press.  It  is  considered  the  most  popular 
and  interesting  section  of  contemporary  New 
York.  Its  fame  is  international;  its  personality 
individual  and  inimitable.  There  is  no  Negro 
settlement  anywhere  comparable  to  Harlem, 
just  as  there  is  no  other  metropolis  comparable 
to  New  York.  As  the  great  south  side  black 
belt  of  Chicago  spreads  and  smells  with  the 
same  industrial  clumsiness  and  stockyard  ish 
vigor  of  Chicago,  so  does  the  black  belt  of  New 
York  teem  and  rhyme  with  the  cosmopolitan 
cross  currents  of  the  world's  greatest  city.  Har- 
lem is  Harlem  because  it  is  part  and  parcel  of 


e     NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

greater    New    York.     Its    rhythms    are    the  , 
lackadaisical  rhythms  of  a  transplanted  minor- 
ity group  caught  up  and  rendered  half  mad  by 
the  more  speedy  rhythms  of  the  subway,  Fifth 
Avenue  and  the  Great  White  Way. 

Negro  Harlem  is  located  on  one  of  the  choice 
sites  of  Manhattan  Island.  It  covers  the  greater 
portion  of  the  northwestern  end,  and  is  more 
free  from  grime,  smoke  and  oceanic  dampness 
than  the  lower  eastside  where  most  of  the 
hyphenated  American  groups  live.  Harlem  is  a 
great  black  city.  There  are  no  shanty-filled, 
mean  streets.  No  antiquated  cobble-stoned  pave- 
ment; no  flimsy  frame  fire-traps.  Little  Africa 
has  fortressed  itself  behind  brick  and  stone  on 
wide  important  streets  where  the  air  is  plenti- 
ful and  sunshine  can  be  appreciated. 

There  are  six  main  north  and  south  thorough- 
fares streaming  through  Negro  Harlem — Fifth 
Avenue,  Lenox  Avenue,  Seventh  Avenue,  Eighth 
Avenue,  Edgecombe  and  St.  Nicholas.  Fifth 
Avenue  begins  prosperously  at  125th  Street, 
becomes  a  slum  district  above  131st  Street,  and 
finally  slithers  off  into  a  warehouse-lined,  dingy 
alleyway  above  139th  Street.  The  people  seen 
on  Fifth  Avenue  are  either  sad  or  nasty  look- 
ing. The  women  seem  to  be  drudges  or  drunk- 
ards,   the    men    pugnacious    and    loud — petty 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  7 

thieves  and  vicious  parasites.  The  children  are 
pitiful  specimens  of  ugliness  and  dirt. 

The  tenement  houses  in  this  vicinity  are  dark- 
ened dungheaps,  festering  with  poverty-stricken 
and  crime-ridden  step-children  of  nature.  This 
is  the  edge  of  Harlem's  slum  district;  Fifth 
Avenue  is  its  board-walk.  Push  carts  line  the 
curbstone,  dirty  push  carts  manned  by  dirtier 
hucksters,  selling  fly-specked  vegetables  and 
other  cheap  commodities.  Evil  faces  leer  at 
you  from  doorways  and  windows.  Brutish  men 
elbow  you  out  of  their  way,  dreary  looking 
women  scowl  at  and  curse  children  playing  on 
the  sidewalk.    That  is  Harlem's  Fifth  Avenue. 

Lenox  Avenue  knows  the  rumble  of  the. 
subway  and  the  rattle  of  the  crosstown  street 
car.  It  is  always  crowded,  crowded  with  pedes- 
trians seeking  the  subway  or  the  street  car, 
crowded  with  idlers  from  the  many  pool  halls 
and  dives  along  its  line  of  march,  crowded  with 
men  and  women  from  the  slum  district  which 
it  borders  on  the  west  and  Fifth  Avenue  bor- 
ders on  the  east.  Lenox  Avenue  is  Harlem's 
Bowery.  It  is  dirty  and  noisy,  its  buildings 
ill-used,  and  made  shaky  by  the  subway  under- 
neath. At  140th  Street  it  makes  its  one  bid 
for  respectability.  On  one  corner  there  is  Tabb's 
Restaurant  and  Grill,  one  of  Harlem's  most  de- 


1     NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

lightful  and  respectable  eating  houses;  across 
the  street  is  the  Savoy  building,  housing  a  first- 
-  dance  hall,  a  motion  picture  theater  and 
y  small  business  establishments  behind  its 
stucco  front.  But  above  141st  Street  Lenox 
Avenue  gets  mean  and  squalid,  deprived  of 
even  its  crowds  of  people,  and  finally  peters 
out  into  a  dirt  pile,  before  leading  to  a  car- 
barn at  147th  St. 

Seventh  Avenue — Black  Broadway — Harlem's 
main  street,  a  place  to  promenade,  a  place  to 
loiter,  an  avenue  spacious  and  sleek  with  wide 
pavement,  modern  well-kept  buildings,  theaters, 
drug  stores  and  other  businesses.  Seventh  Ave- 
nue, down  which  no  Negro  dared  walk  twenty 
years  ago  unless  he  was  prepared  to  fight  bel- 
ligerent Irishmen.  Seventh  Avenue,  teeming 
with  life  and  ablaze  with  color,  the  most  in- 
sting  and  important  street  in  one  of  the 
most  interesting  and  important  city  sections  of 
ter  New  York. 

Negro  Harlem  is  best  represented  by 
Seventh  Avenue.  It  is  not,  like  Fifth  Avenue, 
filthy  and  stark,  nor  like  Lenox,  squalid  and 
y.  It  is  a  grand  thoroughfare  into  which 
every  element  of  Harlem  population  ventures 
either  for  reasons  of  pleasure  or  of  business.  From 
125th  Street  to  145th  Street,  Seventh  Avenue 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  9 


is  a  stream  of  dark  people  going  to  churches, 
theaters,  restaurants,  billiard  halls,  business  of- 
fices, food  markets,  barber  shops  and  apartment 
houses.  Seventh  Avenue  is  majestic  yet  warm, 
and  it  reflects  both  the  sordid  chaos  and  the 
rhythmic  splendor  of  Harlem. 

From  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  until  way 
past  midnight,  Seventh  Avenue  is  one  electric- 
lit  line  of  brilliance  and  activity,  especially 
during  the  spring,  summer  and  early  fall 
months.  Dwelling  houses  are  close,  over- 
crowded and  dark.  Seventh  Avenue  is  the  place 
to  seek  relief.  People  everywhere.  Lines  of 
people  in  front  of  the  box  offices  of  the 
Lafayette  Theater  at  132d  Street,  the  Renais- 
sance motion  picture  theater  at  138th  Street  and 
the  Roosevelt  Theater  at  145th  Street.  Knots 
of  people  in  front  of  the  Metropolitan  Baptist 
Church  at  129th  Street  and  Salem  M.  E.  Church, 
which  dominates  the  corner  at  129th  Street. 

People  going  into  the  cabarets.  People  going 
into  speak-easies  and  saloons.  Groups  of  bois- 
terous men  and  boys,  congregated  on  corners 
and  in  the  middle  of  the  blocks,  making  re- 
marks about  individuals  in  the  passing  parade. 
Adolescent  boys  and  girls  flaunting  their  youth. 
Street  speakers  on  every  corner.  A  Hindoo 
faker  here,  a  loud-voiced   Socialist  there,  a 


10  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

medicine  doctor  ballyhooing,  a  corn  doctor,  a 
blind  musician,  serious  people,  gay  people, 
philanderers  and  preachers.  Seventh  Avenue 
is  filled  with  deep  rhythmic  laughter.  It  :=  a 
civilized  lane  with  primitive  traits,  Harlem's 
most  representative  street. 

Eighth  Avenue  supports  the  elevated  lines. 
It  is  noticeably  negroid  only  from  135th  Street 
to  145th  Street.  It  is  packed  with  dingy,  cheap 
shops  owned  by  Jews.  Above  139th  Street  the 
curbstone  is  lined  with  push-cart  merchants 
selling  everything  from  underwear  to  food- 
stuffs. Eighth  Avenue  is  dark  and  noisy.  The 
elevated  trestle  and  its  shadows  dominate  the 
street.  Few  people  linger  along  its  sidewalks. 
Eighth  Avenue  is  a  street  for  business,  a  street 
for  people  who  live  west  of  it  to  cross  hurriedly 
in  order  to  reach  places  located  east  of  it. 

Edgecombe,  Brandhurst  and  St.  Nicholas 
Avenues  are  strictly  residential  thoroughfares 
of  the  better  variety.  Expensive  modern  apart- 
ment houses  line  these  streets.  They  were 
once  occupied  by  well-to-do  white  people  who 
now  live  on  Riverside  Drive,  West  End  Avenue, 
and  in  Washington  Heights.  They  are  lux- 
uriously appointed  with  imposing  entrar. 
elevator  service,  disappearing  garbage  cans, 
and  all  the  other  appurtenances  that  mal 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  11 

modern  apartment  house  convenient.  The 
Negroes  who  live  in  these  places  are  either 
kizh-salaried  workingmen  or  professional  folk. 

Most  of  the  cross  streets  in  Harlem,  lying 
between  the  main  north  and  south  thorough- 
fares, are  monotonous  and  overcrowded.  There 
is  little  difference  between  any  of  them  save 
that  some  are  more  dirty  and  more  squalid 
than  others.  They  are  lined  with  ordinary,  un- 
extinguished tenement  and  apartment  houses. 
Some  are  well  kept,  others  are  run  down.  There 
are  only  four  streets  that  are  noticeably  dif- 
ferent, 136th  Street,  137th  Street,  138th  Street 
and  139th  Street  west  of  Seventh  Avenue  and 
these  are  the  only  blocks  in  Harlem  that  can 
boast  of  having  shade  trees.  An  improvement 
association  organized  by  people  living  in  these 
streets,  strives  to  keep  them  looking  respect- 
able. * 

Between  Seventh  and  Eighth  Avenues,  is 
139th  Street,  known  among  Harlemites  as 
"strivers*  row."  It  is  the  most  artistocratic 
street  in  Harlem.  Stanford  White  designed  the 
houses  for  a  wealthy  white  clientele.  Moneyed 
XTgroes  now  own  and  inhabit  them.  When 
one  lives  on  "strivers'  row"  one  has  supposedly 
arrived.  Harry  Wills  resides  there,  as  do  a 
number  of  the  leading  Babbitts  and  profes- 
sional folk  of  Harlem. 


12  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 


II.   200,000  NEGROES  IN  HARLEM 

There  are  approximately  200,000  Negroes  in 
Harlem.  Two  hundred  thousand  Negroes 
drawn  from  all  sections  of  America,  from 
Europe,  the  West  Indies,  Africa,  Asia,  or  where 
you  will.  Two  hundred  thousand  Negroes  liv- 
ing, loving,  laughing,  crying,  procreating  and 
dying  in  the  segregated  city  section  of  Greater 
New  York,  about  twenty-five  blocks  long  and 
seven  blocks  wide.  Like  all  of  New  York,  Har- 
lem is  overcrowded.  There  are  as  many  as 
5,000  persons  living  in  some  single  blocks; 
living  in  dark,  mephitic  tenements,  jammed  to- 
gether, brownstone  fronts,  dingy  elevator  flats 

and  modern  apartment  houses. 

•  f 

Living  conditions  are  ribald  and  ridiculous. 
Rents  are  high  and  sleeping  quarters  at  a 
premium.  Landlords  profiteer  and  accept 
bribes,  putting  out  one  tenant  in  order  to  house 
another  willing  to  pay  more  rent.  Tenants,  in 
turn,  sublet  and  profiteer  on  roomers.  People 
rent  a  five-room  apartment,  originally  planned 
for  a  small  family,  and  crowd  two  over-sized 
families  into  it.  Others  lease  or  buy  a  private 
house  and  partition  off  spacious  front  and  back 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  13 


rooms  into  two  or  three  parts.  Hallways  are 
curtained  off  and  lined  with  cots.  Living 
rooms  become  triplex  apartments.  Clothes 
closets  and  washrooms  become  kitchenettes. 
Dining  rooms,  parlors,  libraries,  drawing  rooms 
are  all  profaned  by  cots,  day  beds  and  snoring 
sleepers. 

There  is  little  privacy,  little  unused  space. 
The  man  in  the  front  room  of  a  railroad  flat, 
so  called  because  each  room  opens  into  the 
other  like  coaches  on  a  train,  must  pass 
through  three  other  bedrooms  in  order  to  reach 
the  bathroom  stuck  on  the  end  of  the  kitchen. 
He  who  Works  nights  will  sleep  by  day  in  the 
bed  of  one  who  works  days,  atfd  vice  versa. 
Mother  and  father  sleep  in  a  three-quarter  bed. 
Two  adolescent  children  sleep  on  a  portable 
cot  set  up  in  the  parents'  bedroom.  Other  cots 
are  dragged  by  night  from  closets  and  corners 
to  be  set  up  in  the  dining  room,  in  the  parlor, 
or  even  in  the  kitchen  to  accommodate  the 
remaining  members  of  the  family.  It  is  all 
disconcerting,  mad.  There  must  be  expansion. 
There  is  expansion,  but  it  is  not  rapid  enough 
or  continuous  enough  to  keep  pace  with  the 
ever-growing  population  of  Negro  Harlem. 

The  first  place  in  New  York  where  Negroes 
had  a  segregated  community  was  in  Greenwich 


14  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

Village,  but  as  the  years  passed  and  their 
numbers  increased  they  soon  moved  northward 
into  the  twenties  and  lower  thirties  west  of 
Sixth  Avenue  until  they  finally  made  one  big 
jump  and  centered  around  west  Fifty-third 
Street.  About  1900,  looking  for  better  hous- 
1  ing  conditions,  a  few  Negroes  moved  to  Har- 
lem. The  Lenox  Avenue  subway  had  not  yet 
been  built  and  white  landlords  were  having 
difficulty  in  keeping  white  tenants  east  of 
Seventh  Avenue  because  of  the  poor  transpor- 
tation facilities.  Being  good  businessmen  they 
eagerly  accepted  the  suggestion  of  a  Negro  real 
estate  agent  that  these  properties  be  opened  to 
colored  tenants.  Then  it  was  discovered  that 
the  few  houses  available  would  not  be  suf- 
ficient to  accommodate  the  sudden  influx. 
Negroes  began  to  creep  west  of  Lenox  Avenue. 
White  property  owners  and  residents  began y  to 
protest  and  tried  to  find  means  of  checking  or 
evicting  unwelcome  black  neighbors.  Negroes 
kept  pouring  in.  Negro  capital,  belligerently 
organized,  began  to  buy  all  available  prop- 
erties. 

Then,  to  quote  James  Johnson,  "the  whole 
movement,  in  the  eyes  of  the  whites,  took  on 
the  aspect  of  an  'invasion';  they  became  panic 
stricken  and  began  fleeing  as  from  a  plague. 


NEGRO  LIFE  IX  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  15 


The  presence  of  one  colored  family  in  a  block, 
no  matter  how  well-bred  and  orderly,  was  suf- 
ficient to  precipitate  a  flight.  House  after 
house  and  block  after  block  was  actually  de- 
serted. It  was  a  great  demonstration  of  human 
beings  running  amuck.  None  of  them  stopped 
to  reason  why  they  were  doing  it  or  what 
would  happen  if  they  didn't.  The  banks  and 
the  lending  companies  holding  mortgages  on 
these  deserted  houses  were  compelled  to  take 
them  over.  For  some  time  they  held  these 
houses  vacant,  preferring  to  do  that  and  carry 
the  charges  than  to  rent  or  sell  them  to  colored 
people.  But  values  dropped  and  continued  to 
drop  until  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  in 
Europe  property  in  the  northern  part  of  Har- 
lem had  reached  the  nadir." 

With  the  war  came  a  critical  shortage  of 
common  labor  and  the  introducing  of  thousands 
of  southern  Negroes  into  northern  industrial 
and  civic  centers.  A  great  migration  took 
plaoe.  Negroes  were  in  search  of  a  holy  grail. 
Southern  Negroes,  tired  of  moral  and  financial 
blue  days,  struck  out  for  the  promised  land,  to 
seek  adventure  among  factories,  subways  and 
skyscrapers.  New  York,  of  course,  has  always 
been  a  magnet  for  ambitious  and  adventurous 
Americans  and  foreigners.    New  York  to  the 


16  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

Negro  meant  Harlem,  and  the  great  influx 
included  not  only  thousands  of  Negroes  from 
every  state  in  the  Union,  but  also  over  thirty 
thousand  immigrants  from  the  West  Indian 
Islands  and  the  Carribean  regions.  Harlem 
was  the  promised  land. 

Thanks  to  New  York's  many  and  varied  in- 
dustries, Harlem  Negroes  have  been  able  to 
demand  and  find  much  work.  There  is  a  wel- 
come and  profitable  diversity  of  employment. 
Unlike  Negroes  in  Chicago,  or  in  Pittsburgh, 
or  in  Detroit,  no  one  industry  is  called  upon  to 
employ  the  greater  part  of  their  population. 
Negroes  have  made  money  in  New  York;  Ne- 
groes have  brought  money  to  New  York  with 
them,  and  with  this  money  they  have  fought 
property,  built  certain  civic  institutions  and  in- 
creased their  business  activities  until  t^eir  real 
estate  holdings  are  now  valued  at  more  than 
sixty  million  dollars. 


XEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  17 


lH   THE  SOCIAL  LIFE  OF  HARLEM 

The  social  life  of  Harlem  is  both  complex 
and  diversified.  Here  you  have  two  hundred 
thousand  people  collectively  known  as  Negroes. 
You  have  pure-blooded  Africans,  British  Ne- 
groes, Spanish  Negroes,  Portuguese  Negroes, 
Dutch  Negroes,  Danish  Negroes,  Cubans,  Porto 
Ricans,  Arabians,  East  Indians  and  black  Abys- 
sinian Jews  in  addition  to  the  racially  well- 
mixed  American  Negro.  You  have  persons  of 
every  conceivable  shade  and  color.  Persons 
speaking  all  languages,  persons  representative 
of  many  cultures  and  civilizations.  Harlem  is 
a  magic  melting  pot,  a  modern  Babel  mocking 
the  gods  with  its  cosmopolitan  uniqueness. 

The  American  Negro  predominates  and,  hav- 
ing adopted  all  of  white  America's  prejudices 
and  manners,  is  inclined  to  look  askance  at 
his  little  dark-skinned  brothers  from  across  the 
sea.  The  Spanish  Negro,  i.  e.,  those  Negroes 
hailing  from  Spanish  possessions,  stays  to  him- 
self and  has  little  traffic  with  the  other  racial 
groups  in  his  environment.^  The  other  for- 
eigners, with  the  exception  of  tht  British  West 
Indians  are  not  large  enough  to  form  a  sepa- 


18  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM" 

rate  social  group  and  generally  become  quick- 
ly identified  with  the  regulation  social  life  of 
the  community. 

It  is  the  Negro  from  the  British  West  Indies 
ho  creates  and  has  to  face  a  disagreeable 
problem.  Being  the  second  largest  Negro  Group 
in  Harlem,  and  being  less  susceptible  to  Amer- 
ican manners  and  customs  than  others,  he  is 
frowned  upon  and  berated  by  the  American 
Negro.  This  intraracial  prejudice  is  an  amaz- 
ing though  natural  thing.  Imagine  a  com- 
munity made  up  of  people  universally  known 
as  oppressed,  wasting  time  and  energy  trying 
tp  oppress  others  of  their  kind,  more  recently 
transplanted  from  a  foreign  clime.  It  is  easy 
to  explain.  All  people  seem  subject  to  prej- 
udice, even  those  who  suffer  from  it  most,  and' 
all  people  seem  inherently  to  dislike  other  folk 
who  are  characterized  by  cultural  and  lingual 
differences.  It  is  a  failing  of  man,  a  curse  of 
humanity,  and  if  these  differences  are  accom- 
-inied,  as  they  usually  are,  bV  quarrels  con- 
riming  economic  matters,  there  is  bound  to  t>e 
q  intensifying  of  the  bitter  antagonism  exist- 
ent between  the  two  groups.  Such  has  been 
the  case  with  the  British  West  Indian  in  Har- 
I  lem.  Because  of  his  numerical  strength,  be- 
cause of  his  cockney  English  inflections  and 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  !9 

accent,  because  of  his  unwillingness  to  submit 
to  certain  American  do's  and  don'ts,  and  \)& 
cause  he,  like  most  foreigners,  has  seemed  wiH- 
ing  to  work  for  low  wages,  he  has  been  hat€  1 
and  abused  by  his  fellow-Harlemites.  And.  a& 
a  matter  of  protection,  he  has  learned  to  fight 
back. 

It  has  been  said  that  West  Indians  are  com- 
parable to  Jews  in  that  they  are  "both  ambi- 
tious, eager  for  education,  willing  to  engage  ill 
business,  argumentative,  aggressive,  and  i  as- 
sess a  great  proselytizing  zeal  for  any  c: 
they  espouse."  Most  of  the  retail  business  ill 
Harlem  is  owned  and  controlled  by  West  In- 
dians. They  %re  also  well  represented  and 
often  officiate  as  provocative  agents  and  I 
ers  in  radical  movements  among  Harlem  Ne- 
groes. And  it  is  obvious  that  the  average 
American  Negro,  in  manifesting  a  dislike  fei 
the  West  Indian  Negro,  is  being  victimized  by 
that  same  delusion  which  he  claims  blinds  the 
American  white  man;  namely,  that  all  Negroes 
are  alike.  There  are  some  West  Indians  wi 
are  distasteful;  there  are  some  of  all  peep:-? 
about  whom  one  could  easily  say  the  same 
thing. 

It  is  to  be  seen  then  that  all  this  widely 
diversified  population  would  erect  an  elabc: 


_     NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

social  structure.  For  instance,  there  are  thou- 
sands of  Negroes  in  New  York  from  Georgia. 
These  have  organized  themselves  into  many- 
clubs,  such  as  the  Georgia  Circle  or  the  Sons  of 
Georgia.  People  from  Virginia,  South  Carolina, 
Florida  and  other  states  do  likewise.  The  for- 
eign contingents  also  seem  to  have  a  mania 
for  social  organization.  Social  clubs  and  secret 
lodges  are  legion.  And  all  of  them  vie  with 
one  another  in  giving  dances,  parties,  enter- 
tainments and  benefits  in  addition  to  public 
turnouts  and  parades. 

Speaking  of  parades,  one  must  mention  Mar- 
cus Garvey.  Garvey,  a  Jamaican,  is  one  of  the 
most  widely  known  Negroes  in  contemporary 
life.  He  became  notorious  because  of  his  Back- 
to-Africa  campaign.  With  the  West  Indian 
population  of  Harlem  as  a  nucleus,  he  enlisted 
the  aid  of  thousands  of  Negroes  all  over  Amer- 
ica in  launching  the  Black  Star  Line,  the  pur- 
pose of  which  was  to  establish  a  trade  and 
travel  route  between  America  and  Africa  by 
and  for  Negroes.  He  also  planned  to  establish 
a  black  empire  in  Africa  of  which  he  was  to 
be  emperor.  The  man's  imagination  and  in- 
fluence were  colossal;  his  manifestations  of 
these  qualities  often  ridiculous  and  adolescent, 
though  they  seldom  lacked  color  and  interest. 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  21 

Garvey  added  much  to  the  gaiety  and  life  of 
Harlem  with  his  parades.  Garmented  in  a 
royal  purple  robe  with  crimson  trimmings  and 
an  elaborate  headdress,  he  would  ride  in  state 
down  Seventh  Avenue  in  an  open  limousine, 
surrounded  and  followed  by  his  personal  cabi- 
net of  high  chieftains,  ladies  in  waiting  and 
protective  legion.  Since  his  incarceration  in 
Atlanta  Federal  prison  on  a  charge  of  having 
used  the  mails  to  defraud,  Harlem  knows  no 
more  such  spectacles.  The  street  parades  held 
now  are  uninteresting  and  pallid  when  com- 
pared to  the  Garvey  turnouts,  brilliantly  prim- 
itive as  they  were. 

In  addition  to  the  racial  and  territorial 
divisions  of  the  social  structure  there  are  also 
minor  divisions  determined  by  color  and 
wealth.  First  there  are  the  "dictys,"  that  class 
of  Negroes  who  constitute  themselves  as  the 
upper  strata  and  have  lately  done  much  wail- 
ing in  the  public  places  because  white  and 
black  writers^  have  seemingly  overlooked  them 
in  their  delineations  of  Negro  life  in  Harlem. 
This  upper  strata  is  composed  of  the  more 
successful  and  more  socially  inclined  profes- 
sional folk — lawyers,  doctors,  dentists,  drug- 
gists, politicians,  beauty  parlor  proprietors  and 
real  estate  dealers.   They  are  for  the  most  part 


Zl  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

mulattoes  of  light  brown  skin  and  have  suc- 
kled in  absorbing  all  the  social  mannerisms 
c :  the  white  American  middle  class.  They  live 
itx  the  stately  rows  of  houses  on  138th  and 
139th  Streets  betwen  Seventh  and  Eighth  Ave- 
nues or  else  in  the  "high-tone"  apartment 
houses  on  Edgecombe  and  St.  Nicholas.  They 
are  both  stupid  and  snobbish  as  is  their  class 
in  any  race.  Their  most  compelling  if  some- 
times unconscious  ambition  is  to  be  as  near 
white  as  possible,  and  their  greatest  expendi- 
ture of  energy  is  concentrated  on  eradicating 
trait  or  characteristic  commonly  known 
as  negroid. 

Their  homes  are  expensively  appointed  and 
c :  :n  for  table.  Most  of  them  are  furnished  in 
good  taste,1  thanks  to  the  interior  decorator 
who  was  hired  to  do  the  job.  Their  existence 
is  one  of  smug  complacence.  They  are  well 
satisfied  with  themselves  and  with  their  class. 
They  are  without  a  doubt  the  basic  element 
Prom  which  the  Negro  aristocracy  of  the  future 
will  evolve.  They  are  also  good  illustrations, 
mentally,  sartorially  and  socially,  of  what  the 
American  standardizing  machine  can  do  to 
susceptible  material. 

These  people  haye  a  social  life  of  their  own. 
y  attend  formal  dinners  and  dances,  re- 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  23 

splendent  in  chic  expensive  replicas  of  Fi:::3 
Avenue  finery.  They  arrange  suitable  inter- 
coterie  weddings,  preside  luxuriously  at  an- 
nouncement dinners,  pre-nuptial  showers,  wed- 
ding breakfasts  and  the  like.  They  att*  ti 
church  socials,  fraternity  dances  and  sorority 
gatherings.  They  frequent  the  downtown  the- 
aters, and  occasionally,  quite  occasionally,  drop 
into  one  of  the  Harlem  night  clubs  which  cer- 
tain of  their  lower  caste  brethren  frequent  and 
white  downtown  excursionists  make  weal 

Despite  this  upper  strata  which  is  quite 
small,  social  barriers  among  Negroes  are  no* 
as  strict  and  well  regulated  in  Harlem  as  they 
are  in  other  Negro  communities.  Like  all  cos- 
mopolitan centers  Harlem  is  democratic.  Pur- 
ple associate  with  all  types  should  chance  hap- 
pen to  throw  them  together.  There  are  a 
aristocrats,  a  plethora  of  striving  bourgeoisie, 
a  few  artistic  spirits  and  a  great  proletarian 
mass,  which  constitutes  the  most  interesting 
and  important  element  in  Harlem,  for  it  ils 
this  latter  class  and  their  institutions  that 
gives  the  community  its  color  and  fascination. 


24  NEGKo  LIFE  1 N  NEW  STORK'S  HARLEM 


IV.   NIGHT  LIFE  IN  HARLEM 

Much  has  been  written  and  said  about  night 
life  in  Harlem.  It  has  become  the  leit  moHj 
of  sophisticated  conversation  and  shop  girl  in- 
timacies. To  call  yourself  a  New  Yorker  you 
must  have  been  to  Harlem  at  least  once.  Every 
up-to-date  person  knows  Harlem,  and  knowing 
Harlem  generally  means  that  one  has  visited 
a  night  club  or  two.  These  night  clubs  are 
now  enjoying  much  publicity  along  with  the 
New  Negro  and  Negro  art.  They  are  the 
shrines  to  which  white  sophisticates,  Greenwich 
Village  artists,  Broadway  revellers  and  prov- 
incial commuters  make  eager  pilgrimage.  Jn 
fact,  the  white  patronage  is  so  profitable  anfl 
so  abundant  that  Negroes  find  themselves 
crowded  out  and  even  segregated  in  their  own 
places  of  jazz. 

There  are,  at  the  present  time,  about  one 
dozen  of  these  night  clubs  in  Harlem — Bam- 
ville,  Connie's  Inn,  Baron  Wilkins,  The  Nest, 
Small's  Paradise,  The  Capitol,  The  Cotton  Club, 
The  Green  Cat,  The  Sugar  Cane  Club,  Happy 
Rhones,  The  Hoofers  Club  and  the  Little  Savoy. 
Most  of  these  generally  have  from  two  to  ten 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  25 

whife  persons  for  every  black  one.  Only  The 
Hoofers,  The  Little  Savoy,  and  The  Sugar  Cane 
Club  seem  to  cater  almost  exclusively  to  Negro 
trade. 

At  the  Bamville  and  at  Small's  Paradise,  one 
finds  smart  white  patrons,  the  type  that  reads 
the  ultrasophisticated  New  Yorker.  Indeed, 
that  journal  says  in  its  catalogue  of  places  to 
go — "Small's  and  Bamville  are  the  show  places 
of  Harlem  for  downtowners  on  their  first  ex- 
cursion. Go  late.  Better  not  to  dress."  And 
so  the  younger  generation  of  Broadway,  Park 
Avenue,  Riverside  Drive,  Third  Avenue  and 
the  Bronx  go  late,  take  their  own  gin,  applaud 
the  raucous  vulgarity  of  the  entertainers,  dance 
with  abandon  and  go  home  with  a  headache. 
They  have  seen  Harlem. 

The  Cotton  Club  and  Connie's  Inn  make  a 
bid  for  theatrical  performers  and  well-to-do 
folk  around  town.  The  Nest  and  Happy  Rhones 
attract  traveling  salesmen,  store  clerks  and 
commuters  from  Jersey  and  Yonkers.  The 
Green  Cat  has  a  large  Latin  clientele.  Baron 
Wilkins  draws  glittering  ladies  from  Broadway 
with  their  sleek  gentlemen  friends.  Because  of 
these  conditions  of  invasion,  Harlem's  far- 
famed  night  clubs  have  become  merely  side 
shews    staged    for    sensation-seeking  whites. 


26  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

Nevertheless,  they  are  still  an  egregious  some- 
thing to  experience.  Their  smoking  cavernous 
depths  are  eerie  and  ecstatic.  Patrons  enter, 
shiver  involuntarily,  then  settle  down  to  be 
shoved  about  and  scared  by  the  intangible 
rhythms  thai  surge  all  around  them.  White 
night  clubs  are  noisy.  White  night  clubs  affect 
weird  music,  soft  light,  Negro  entertainers  and 
dancing  waiters,  but,  even  with  all  these  con- 
tributing elements,  they  cannot  approximate 
the  infectious  rhythm  and  joy  always  found  in 
a  Negro  cabaret. 

Take  the  Sugar  Cane  Club  on  Fifth  Avers ue 
near  135th  Street,  located  on  the  border  of  the 
most  "low-down"  section  of  Harlem.  This 
place  is  visited  by  few  whites  or  few  "dicty" 
Negroes.  Its  customers  are  the  rough-and- 
ready,  happy-go-lucky  more  primitive  type — 
street  walkers,  petty  gamblers  and  pimps,  with 
an  occasional  adventurer  from  other  strata  of 
society. 

The  Sugar  Cane  Club  is  a  narrow  subter- 
ranean passageway  about  twenty-five  feet  wide 
and  125  feet  long.  Rough  wooden  tables,  sur- 
rounded by  rough  wooden  chairs,  and  the  or- 
chestra stands,  jammed  into  the  right  wall 
center,  use  up  about  three-quarters  of  the  space. 
The  remaining  rectangular  area  is  barec!  for 


NEGRO  LIFE  IX  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  27 


dancing.  With  a  capacity  for  seating  about 
one  hundred  people,  it  usually  finds  room  on 
gala  nights  for  twice  that  many.  The  orches- 
tra weeps  and  moans  and  groans  as  only  an 
unsophisticated  Negro  jazz  orchestra  can.  A 
blues  singer  croons  vulgar  ditties  over  the 
tables  to  individual  parties  or  else  wah-wahs 
husky  syncopated,  blues  songs  from  the  center 
of  the  floor.  Her  act  over,  the  white  lights 
a:r  extinguished,  red  and  blue  spot  lights  are 
centered  on  the  diminutive  dancing  space, 
couples  push  hac\  their  chairs,  squeeze  out 
from  behind  the  tables  and  from  against  the 
wall,  then  finding  one  another's  bodies,  sweat 
gloriously  together,  with  shoulders  hunched, 
limbs  obscenely  intertwined  and  hips  wiggling; 
animal  beings  urged  on  by  liquor  and  music 
and  physical  contact. 

Small's  Paradise,  on  Seventh  Avenue  near 
135th  Street,  is  just  the  opposite  of  the  Sugar 
Cane  Club.  It  caters  almost  exclusively  to 
white  trade  with  just  enough  Negroes  present 
to  give  the  necessary  atmosphere  and .  "dif- 
ference." Yet  even  in  Small's  with  its  sym- 
phonic orchestra,  full-dress  appearance  and  dig- 
nified onlookers,  there  is  a  great  deal  of  that 
unexplainable,  intangible  rhythmic  presence  so 
characteristic  of  a  Negro  cabaret. 


28  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

In  addition  to  the  well-known  cabarets,  which, 
are  largely  show  places  to  curious  whites,  there 
are  innumerable  places — really  speak-easies — 
which  are  open  only  to  the  initiate.  These 
places  are  far  more  colorful  and  more  full  of 
spontaneous  joy  than  the  larger  places  to  which 
one  has  ready  access.  They  also  furnish  more 
thrills  to  the  spectator.  This  is  possible  be- 
cause the  crowd  is  more  select,  the  liquor  more 
fiery,  the  atmosphere  more  intimate  and  the 
activities  of  the  patrons  not  subject  to  be 
watched  by  open-mouthed  white  people  from 
downtown  and  the  Bronx. 

One  particular  place  known  as  the  Glory  Hole 
is  hidden  in  a  musty  damp  basement  behind 
an  express  and  trucking  office.  It  is  a  single 
room  about  ten  feet  square  and  remains  an 
unembellished  basement  except  for  a  planed 
down  plank  floor,  a  piano,  three  chairs  and  a 
library  table.  The  Glory  Hole  is  typical  of  its 
class.  It  is  a  social  club,  commonly  called  a 
dive,  convenient  for  the  high  times  of  a  certain 
group.  The  men  are  unskilled  laborers  during 
the  day,  and  in  the  evenings  they  round  up 
their  girls  or  else  meet  them  at  the  rendezvous 
in  order  to  have  what  they  consider  and  enjoy 
as  a  good  time.  The  women,  like  the  men, 
swear,  drink  and  dance  as  much  and  as  vul- 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  29 

garly  as  they  please.  Yet  they  do  not  strike 
the  observer  as  being  vulgar.  They  are  mere- 
ly being  and  doing  what  their  environment  and 
their  desire  for  pleasure  suggest. 

Such  places  as  the  Glory  Hole  can  be  found 
all  over  the  so-called  ''bad  lands"  of  Harlem. 
They  are  not  always  confined  to  basement 
rooms.  They  can  be  found  in  apartment  flats, 
in  the  rear  of  barber  shops,  lunch  counters, 
pool  halls,  and  other  such  conveniently  blind 
places.  Each  one  has  its  regular  quota  of 
customers  with  just  enough  new  patrons  in- 
troduced from  time  to  time  to  keep  the  place 
alive  and  prosperous.  These  intimate,  lowdown 
civic  centers  are  occasionally  misjudged.  So- 
cial service  reports  damn  them  with  the  phrase 
"breeding  places  of  vice  and  crime."  They  may 
be.  They  are  also  good  training  grounds  for 
prospective  pugilists.  Fights  are  staged  with 
regularity  and  with  vigor.  And  most  of  the 
regular  customers  have  some  mark  on  their 
faces  or  bodies  that  can  be  displayed  as  having 
been  received  during  a  battle  in  one  of  the  glory 
holes. 

The  other  extreme  of  amusement  places  in 
Harlem  is  exemplified  by  the  Bamboo  Inn,  a 
Chinese-American  restaurant  that  features 
Oriental  cuisine,  a  jazz  band  and  dancing.  It 


30  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

is  the  place  for  select  Negro  Harlem's  night 
life,  the  place  where  debutantes  have  their 
coming  out  parties,  where  college  lads  t 
their  co-eds  and  society  sweethearts  and  where 
dignified  matrons  entertain.    It  is  a  be; 
fully  decorated  establishment,  glorified  by  a 
balcony  with  booths,  and  a  large  gyroflect or, 
suspending  from  the  center  of  the  ceiling,  on 
which  colored  spotlights  play,  fleeting  the  room1 
with  triangular  bits  of  vari-colored  light.  THi 
Bamboo  Inn  is  the  place  to  see  "high  Harlem," 
just  like  the  Glory  Hole  is  the  plpce  to  see  "low 
Harlem."    Well-dressed  men  escorting  expen- 
sively garbed  women  and  girls;  models  f] 
Vanity  Fair   with  brown,   yellow  and  bl  :k 
skins.  Doctors  and  lawyers,  Babbitts  and  their 
ladies    with    fine    manners    (not  necessarily 
learned  through  Emily  Post),  fine  clothes  and 
fine  homes  to  return  to  when  the  night's  fun 
has  ended. 

The  music  plays.  The  gyroflector  revolves. 
The  wellbred,  polite  dancers  mingle  on  the 
dance  floor.  There  are  a  few  silver  hip  flasks. 
There  is  an  occasional  burst  of  toq-spontaneous- 
for-the-environment  laughter.  The  Chi: 
waiters  slip  around,  quiet  and  bored.  A  big 
black-face  bouncer,  arrayed  in  tuxedo,  watches 
eagerly  for  some  too  boisterous,  too  unconven- 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  31 


tional  person  to  put  out.  The  Bamboo  Inn  has 
only  one  blemishing  feature.  It  is  also  the  ren- 
dezvous for  a  set  of  oriental  men  who  favor 
white  women,  and  who,  with  their  pale  face 
partners,  mingle  with  Harlem's  four  hundred. 

When  Harlem  people  wish  to  dance,  without 
attending  a  cabaret,  they  go  to  the  Renaissance 
Casino  or  to  the  Savoy,  Harlem's  two  most  fa- 
mous public  dance  halls.  The  Savoy  is  the 
pioneer  in  the  field  of  giving  dance-loving 
Harlemites  some  place  to  gather  nightly.  It 
is  an  elaborate  ensemble  with  a  Chinese  gar- 
den (Negroes  seem  to  have  a  penchant  for 
Chinese  food — there  are  innumerable  Chinese 
restaurants  all  over  Harlem),  two  orchestras 
that  work  in  relays,  and  hostesses  provided  at 
twenty-five  cents  per  dance  for  partnerless 
young  men.  The  Savoy  opens  at  three  in  the 
afternoon  and  closes  at  three  in  the  morning. 
One  can  spend  twelve  hours  in  this  jazz  palace 
for  sixty-five  cents,  and  the  price  of  a  dinner 
or  an  occasional  sustaining  sandwich  and  drink. 
The  music  is  good,  the  dancers  are  gay,  and 
the  setting  is  conducive  to  Joy. 

The  Renaissance  Casino  was  formerly  a 
dance  hall,  rented  out  only  for  social  affairs, 
but  when  the  Savoy  began  to  flourish,  the  Re- 
naissance, after  closing  a  while  for  redecora- 


32  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

tions,  changed  its  policy  and  reopened  as  a 
public  dance  hall.  It  has  no  lounging  room  or 
Chinese  garden,  but  it  stages  a  basket  ball 
game  every  Sunday  night  that  is  one  of  the 
most  popular  amusement  institutions  in  Har- 
lem, and  it  has  an  exceptionally  good  orchestra, 
comfortable  sitting-out  places  and  a  packed 
dance  floor  nightly; 

Then,  when  any  social  club  wishes  to  give 
a  dance  at  the  Renaissance,  the  name  of  the 
organization  is  flashed  from  the  electric  sign- 
board that  hangs  above  the  entrance  and  in 
return  for  the  additional  and  assured  crowd, 
some  division  of  the  door  receipts  is  made. 
The  Renaissance  is,  I  believe,  in  good  Har- 
lemese,  considered  more  "dicty"  than  the  Sa- 
voy. It  has  a  more  regulated  and  more  dig- 
nified clientele,  and  almost  every  night  in  the 
week  the  dances  are  sponsored  by  some  well- 
known  social  group. 

In  addition  to  the  above  two  places,  the  Man- 
hattan Casino,  an  elaborate  dance  palace,  is 
always  available  for  the  more  de  luxe  gather- 
ings. It  is  at  the  Manhattan  Casino  that  the 
National  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Colored  People  has  its  yearly  whist  tournament 
and  dance,  that  Harlem  society  folk  have  their 
charity  balls,  and  select  formals,  and  that  the 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  33 

notorious  Hamilton  Lodge  holds  its  spectacular 
masquerade  each  year. 

All  of  the  dances  held  in  this  Casino  are 
occasions  never  to  be  forgotten.  Hundreds  of 
well-dressed  couples  dancing  on  the  floor.  Hun- 
dreds of  Negroes  of  all  types  and  colors,  min- 
gling together  on  the  dance  floor,  gathering  in 
the  boxes,  meeting  and  conversing  on  the  prom- 
enade. And  here  and  there  an  occasional  white 
person,  or  is  it  a  Negro  who  can  "pass"? 

Negroes  love  to  dance,  and  in  Harlem  where 
the  struggle  to  live  is  so  intensely  complex,  the 
dance  serves  as  a  welcome  and  feverish  outlet. 
Yet  it  is  strange  that  none  of  these  danc*e 
palaces  are  owned  o*  operated  by  Negroes, 
The  Renaissance  Casino  was  formerly  owned 
by  a  syndicate  of  West  Indians,  but  has  now 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  Jewish  group.  And 
despite  the  thousands  of  dollars  Negroes  spend 
in  order  to  dance,  the  only  monetary  returns 
in  their  own  community  are  the  salaries  paid 
to  the  Negro  musicians,  ushers,  janitors  and 
door-men.  The  rest  of  the  profits  are  spent 
and  exploited  outside  of  Harlem. 

This  is  true  of  most  Harlem  establishments. 
The  Negro  in  Harlem  is  not,  like  the  Negro 
in  Chicago  and  other  metropolitan  centers,  in 
charge  of  the  commercial  enterprises  located 


3  4  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

in  his  community.  South  State  Street  in 
Chicago's  great  Black  belt,  is  studded  with 
X^gro  banks,  Negro  office  buildings,  hous- 
ing Xegro  insurance  companies,  manufacturing 
concerns,  and  other  major  enterprises.  There 
are  no  Negro  controlled  banks  in  Harlem. 
There  are  only  branches  of  downtown  Manhat- 
tan's financial  institutions,  manned  solely  by 
res  and  patronized  almost  exclusively  by 
Negroes.  Harlem  has  no  outstanding  manu- 
facturing concern  like  the  Overton  enterprises 
in  Chicago,  the  Poro  school  and  factory  in  St. 
Louis,  or  the  Madame  Walker  combine  in  In- 
dianapolis. Harlem  Negroes  own  over  sixty 
million  dollars  worth  of  real  estate,  but  they 
neither  own  nor  operate  one  first-class  grocery 
store,  butchershop,  dance  hall,  theater,  clothing 
gtore  or  saloon.  They  do  invest  their  money  in 
barber  shops,  beauty  parlors,  pool  halls,  tailor 
shops,  restaurants  and  lunch  counters. 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  25 


V.   THE  AMUSEMENT  LIFE  OF  HARLEM 

Like  most  good  American  communities  the 
movies  hold  a  primary  position  in  the  amuse- 
ment life  of  Harlem.  There  are  seven  neigh- 
borhood motion  picture  houses  in  Negro  Harlem 
proper,  and  about  six  big  time  cinema  palaces 
on  125th  Street  that  have  more  white  patron- 
age than  black,  yet  whose  audiences  are  swelled 
by  movi.  fans  from  downtown. 

The  picture  emporiums  of  Harlem  are  com- 
parable to  those  in  any  residential  neigh" 
hood.  They  present  second  and  third  run  fea- 
tures with  supporting  bills  of  comedies,  novel- 
ties, and  an  occasional  special  rjerformanee  when 
the  management  presents  a  bathing  beauties 
contest,  a  plantation  jubilee,  an  amateur  en- 
semble and  other  vaudeville  stunts.  The  Renais- 
sance Theater,  in  the  same  building  with  the 
Renaissance  Casino,  is  the  cream  of  Harlem 
motion  picture  houses.  It,  too,  was  formerly 
owned  and  operated  by  Negroes,  the  only  one 
of  its  kind  in  Harlem.  Now  Negroes  only  oper- 
ate vit.  The  Renaissance  attracts  the  more 
select  movie  audiences;  it  has  a  reputable 
symphony  orchestra,  a  Wurlitzer  organ,  and 


36  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

presents  straight  movies  without  vaudeville 
flapdoodle.  It  is  spacious  and  clean  and  free 
from  disagreeable  odors. 

The  Roosevelt  Theater,  the  New  Douglas,  and 
the  Savoy  are  less  aristocratic  competitors. 
They  show  the  same  pictures  as  the  Renais- 
sance, but  seem  to  be  patronized  by  an  entirely 
different  set  of  people,  and,  although  their  in- 
teriors are  more  spacious,  they  are  not  as  well 
decorated  or  as  clean  as  the  Renaissance.  They 
attract  a  set  of  fresh  youngsters,  smart  aleck 
youths  and  lecherous  adult  males  who  attend, 
not  so  much  to  see  the  picture  as  to  pick  up 
a  susceptible  female  or  to  spoon  with  some  girl 
they  have  picked  up  elsewhere.  The  places  are 
also  frequented  by  family  groups,  poor  but 
honest  folk,  who  cannot  afford  other  forms  or 
places  of  amusement. 

The  Franklin  and  the  Gem  are  the  social  out- 
casts of  the  group.  Their  audiences  are  com- 
posed almost  entirely  of  loafers  from  the  low- 
grade  pool  rooms  and  dives  in  their  vicinity, 
and  tenement-trained  drudges  from  the  slums. 
The  stench  in  these  two  places  is  nauseating. 
The  Board  of  Health  rules  are  posted  con- 
spicuously, admonishing  patrons  not  to  spit  on 
the  floor  or  to  smoke  in  the  auditorium,  but 
th£  aisle  is  slippery  with  tobacco  spew  and 


/ 


NEGRO  LIF.3  IN"  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  37 


cigarette  smoke  adds  to  the  density  of  the  foul 
air.  The  movies  flicker  on  the  screen,  some 
wild  west  picture  three  or  four  years  old,  dirty 
babies  cry  in  time  with  the  electric  piano  that 
furnishes  the  music,  men  talk  out  loud,  smoke, 
spit,  and  drop  empty  gin  or  whiskey  bottles  on 
the  floor  -when  emptied. 

All  of  these  places  from  the  Renaissance  to 
the  Gem  are  open  daily  from  two  in  the  after- 
noon until  eleven  at  night,  and  save  for  a  lean 
audience  during  the  supper  hour  are  usually 
filled  to  capacity.  Saturdays,  Sundays  and  holi- 
days are  harvest  times,  and  the  Jewish  repre- 
sentatives of  the  chain  to  which  a  theater  be- 
longs walH  around  excitedly  and  are  exceedingly 
gracious,  thinking  no  doubt  of  the  quarters  that 
are  being  deposited  at  the  box  office. 

The  Lafayette  and  Lincoln  theaters  are  three- 
a-day  combination  movie  and  musical  comedy 
revue  houses.  The  Lafayette  used  to  house 
a  local  stock  company  composed  of  all  Negro 
players,  but  it  has  now  fallen  into  less  dignified 
hands.  Each  week  it  presents  a  new  revue. 
These  revues  are  generally  weak-kneed,  watery 
variations  on  downtown  productions.  If  Earl' 
Carroll  is  presenting  Artists  and  Models  on 
Broadway,  the  Lafayette  presents  Brown  Skin 
Models  in  Harlem  soon  afterwards.    Week  after 


2S  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

week  one  sees  same  type  of  "high  yaller" 
chorus,  hears  the  same  blues  songs,  and  ap- 
.  plauds  different  dancers  doing  the  same  dance 
;s.    There  is  little  originality  on  the  part 
I  the  performers,  and  seldom  any  change  of 
fare.    Cheap  imitations  of  Broadway  successes, 
nudity,  vulgar  dances  and  vulgar  jokes  are  the 
;    x  office  attractions. 

On  Friday  nights  there  is  a  midnight  show. 
Which  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  spectacles 
in  Harlem.  The  performance  begins  some  time 
after  midnight  and  lasts  until  four  or  four- 
thirty  the  next  morning.  The  audience  is  as 
much  if  not  more  interesting  and  amusing  than 
the  performers  on  the  stage.  Gin  bottles  are 
carried  and  passed  among  groups  of  friends. 
Cat  calls  and  hisses  attend  any  dull  bit.  Out- 
ken  comments  punctuate  the  lines,  songs 
and  dances  of  the  performers.  Impromptu  acts 
are  staged  in  the  orchestra  and  in  the  gallery. 
The  performers  themselves  are  at  their  best 
and  leave  the  stage  to  make  the  audience  a 
1  :  rt  of  their  act.  There  are  no  conventions 
c  :  ::sidered,  no  reserve  is  manifested.  Everyone 
has  a  jolly  good  time,  and  after  the  theater 
there  are  parties  or  work  according  to  the 
wealth  and  inclinations  of  the  individual. 

The  Lincoln   theater  is  smaller  and  more 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  ZS 


smelly  than  the  Lafayette,  and  most  people  who 
attend  the  latter  will  turn  up  their  noses  at 
the  Lincoln.  It  too  has  revues  and  movies, 
and  its  only  distinguishing  feature  is  that  its 
shows  are  even  worse  than  those  staged  at  the 
Lafayette.  They  are  so  bad  that  they  are 
ludicrously  funny.  The  audience  is  comparable 
to  that  found  in  the  Lafayette  on  Friday  night3 
at  the  midnight  jamboree.  Performers  are 
razzed.  Chorus  girls  are  openly  courted  or 
damned,  and  the  spontaneous  utterances  of  the 
patrons  are  far  more  funny  than  any  joke  the 
comedians  ever  tell.  If  one  can  stand  the 
stench,  one  can  have  a  good  time  for  three 
hours  or  more  just  by  watching  the  unpredict- 
able and  surprising  reactions  of  the  audier.  e 
to  what  is  being  presented  on  the  stage. 


r 

40  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 


VI.    HOUSE  RENT  PARTIES,  NUMBERS  AND 
HOT  MEN 

The  Harlem  institutions  that  Intrigue  the 
imagination  and  stimulate  the  most  interest  on 
the  part  of  an  investigator  are  House  Rent 
Parties,  Numbers  and  Hot  Men.  House  Rent 
parties  are  the  result  of  high  rents.  Private 
houses  containing  nine  or  ten  or  twelve  rooms 
rent  from  $185  up  to  $250  per  month.  Apart- 
ments are  rated  at  $20  per  room  or  more,  ac- 
cording to  the  newness  of  the  building  and  the 
conveniences  therein.  Five-room  flats,  located 
in  walk-up  tenements,  with  inside  rooms,  dark 
hallways  and  dirty  stairs  rent  for  $10  per  room 
or  more.  It  can  be  seen  then  that  when  the 
average  Negro  workingman's  salary  is  con- 
sidered (he  is  often  paid  less  for  his  labors 
than  a  white  man  engaged  in  the  same  sort  of 
work),  and  when  it  is  also  considered  that  he 
and  his  family  must  eat,  dress  and  have  some 
amusements  and  petty  luxuries,  these  rents  as- 
sume a  criminal  enormity.  And  even  though 
every  available  bit  of  unused  space  is  sub-let  at 
exorbitant  rates  to  roomers,  some  other  source 
of  revenue  is  needed  wThen  the  time  comes  to 
meet  the  landlord. 


NEGRO  LIFE  IX  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  U 

Hence  we  have  hundreds  of  people  opening 
their  apartments  and  houses  to  the  public,  their 
only  stipulation  being  that  the  public  pay 
twenty-five  cents  admission  fee  and  buy  plenti- 
fully of  the  food  and  drinks  offered  for  sale. 
Although  one  of  these  parties  can  be  found  any 
time  during  the  week,  Saturday  night  is 
favored.  The  reasons  are  obvious;  folk  don't 
have  to  get  up  early  on  Sunday  morning  and 
most  of  them  have  had  a  pay  day. 

Of  course,  this  commercialization  of  spon- 
taneous pleasure  in  order  to  pay  the  landlord 
has  been  abused,  and  now  there  are  folk  who 
make  their  living  altogether  by  giving  alleged 
House  Rent  Parties.  This  is  possible  because 
there  are  in  Harlem  thousands  of  people  with 
no  place  to  go,  thousands  of  people  lonesome, 
unattached  and  cramped,  who  stroll  the  streets 
eager  for  a  chance  to  form  momentary  contacts, 
to  dance,  to  drink  and  make  merry.  They  will- 
ingly part  with  more  of  the  week's  pay  than 
they  should  just  to  enjoy  an  oasis  in  the  desert 
of  their  existence  and  a  joyful  intimate  party, 
open  to  the  public  yet  held  in  a  private  home, 
is,  as  they  say,  "their  meat."   

So  elaborate  has  the  technique  of  these 
parties  and  their  promotion  become  that  great 
competition  has  sprung  up  between  prospective 


42  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLL 

party  givers.  Private  advertising  stunts  are 
resorted  to,  and  done  quietly  so  as  not  to  at- 
tract too  much  attention  from  the  police,  who 
might  want  to  collect  a  license  fee  or  else  drop 
in  and  search  for  liquor.  Cards  are  passed  out 
in  pool  halls,  subway  stations,  cigar  stores,  snd 
,on  the  street.    This  is  an  example: 

Hey  !    Hey ! 
Come  on  boys  and  girls  let's  shake 
that  thing 
Where? 
At 

Hot  Poppa  Sam's 
West  134th  Street,  three  flights  up. 
Jelly  Roll  Smith  at  the  piano 
Saturday  night,  May  7,  1927 
Hey  !     Hey  ! 

Saturday  night  comes.  There  may  be  :nlr 
piano  music,  there  may  be  a  piano  and  drum, 
or  a  three  or  four-piece  ensemble.  Red  lights, 
dim  and  suggestive,  are  in  order.  The  parlor 
and  the  dining  room  are  cleared  for  the  dance> 
and  one  bedroom  is  utilized  for  hats  and  coats. 
In  the  kitchen  will  be  found  toiled  pigs  feet, 
ham  hock  and  cabbage,  hopping  John  (a  in- 
tonation of  peas  and  rice),  and  other  proletarian 
dishes. 

The  music  will  be  barbarous  and  slow.  The 
dancers  will  use  their  bodies  and  the  bodies  of 
their  partners  without  regard  to  the  conven- 
tions.  There  will  be  little  restraint.   Happy  in- 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  43 

dividuals  will  do  solo  specialties,  will  sing, 
dance — have  Charleston  and  Black  Bottom  con- 
tests and  breakdowns.  Hard  little  tenement 
girls  will  flirt  and  make  dates  with  Pool  Hall 
Johnnies  and  drug  store  cowboys.  Prostitutes 
will  drop  in  and  slink  out.  And  in  addition  to 
the  liquor  sold  by  the  house,  flasks  of  gin,  and 
corn  and  rye  will  be  passed  around  and 
emptied.  Here  "low"  Harlem  is  in  its  glory, 
primitive  and  unashamed. 

I  have  counted  as  many  as  twelve  such 
parties  in  one  block,  five  in  one  apartment 
house  containing  forty  flats.  They  are  held  all 
over  Harlem  with  the  possible  exception  of 
137til,  138th  and  139th  Streets  between  Seventh 
and  Eighth  Avenues  where  the  bulk  of  Har- 
lan's upper  class  lives.  Yet  the  house  rent 
party  is  not  on  the  whole  a  vicious  institution. 
It  serves  a  real  and  vital  purpose,  and  is  as 
es-rntial  to  "low  Harlem"  as  the  cultured  recep- 
tions and  soirees  held  on  "stovers'  row"  are  to 
"hUh  Harlem." 

House  rent  parties  have  their  evils;  it  is  an 
eeonomic  evil  and  a  social  evil  that  makes  them 
necessary,  but  they  also  have  their  virtues. 
Like  all  other  institutions  of  man  it  depends 
ap  m  what  perspective  you  view  them  from.  But 
rerardless    of    abstract    matters,    house  rent 


44  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

parties  do  provide  a  source  of  revenue  to  those 
in  difficult  financial  straits,  and  they  also  give 
lonesome  Harlemites,  caged  in  by  intangible 
bars,  some  place  to  have  their  fun  and  forget 
problems  of  color,  civilization  and  economics. 

Numbers,  unlike  house  rent  parties,  is  not  an 

institution  confined  to  any  one  class  of  Harlem 

folk.    Almost  everybody  plays  the  numbers,  a 

universal  and  illegal  gambling  pastime,  which 

has  become  Harlem's  favorite  indoor  sport. 

» 

Numbers  is  one  of  the  most  elaborate,  big- 
scale  lottery  games  in  America.  It  is  based  on 
the  digits  listed  in  the  daily  reports  of  the  New 
York  stock  exchange.  A  person  wishing  to  play 
the  game  places  a  certain  sum  of  money,  from 
one  penny  up,  on  a  number  composed  of  three 
digits.  This  number  must  be  placed  in  the 
hands  of  a  runner  before  ten  o'clock  in  the 
morning  as  the  reports  are  printed  in  the  early 
editions  of  the  afternoon  papers.  The  clearing 
house  reports  are  like  this: 

Exchanges   $1,023,000,000 

Balances    128,000,000 

Credit  Bal  _   98,000,000 

The  winning  number  is  composed  from  the 
second  and  third  digits  in  the  millionth  figures 
opposite  exchanges  and  from  the  third  figure  in 
the  millionth  place  opposite  the  balances.  Thus 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  45 

if  the  report  is  like  the  example  above,  the  win- 
ning number  for  that  day  will  be  238. 

An  elaborate  system  of  placement  and  paying 
off  has  grown  around  this  game.  Hundreds  of 
persons  known  as  runners  make  their  rounds 
daily,  collecting  number  slips  and  cash  place- 
ments from  their  clients.  These  runners  are 
the  middle  men  between  the  public  and  the 
.  banker,  who  pays  the  runner  a  commission  on 
all  collections,  reimburses  winners,  if  there  are 
any,  and  also  gives  the  runner  a  percentage  of 
his  client's  winnings. 

These  bankers  and  runners  can  well  afford 
to  be  and  often  are  rogues.  Since  numbers  is 
an  illegal  pastime,  they  can  easily  disappear 
when  the  receipts  are  heavy  or  a  number  of 
people  have  chosen  the  correct  three  digits  and 
wish  their  winnings.  The  police  are  supposed 
to  make  some  effort  to  enforce  the  law  and 
checlj,  the  game.  Occasionally  a  runner  or  a 
banker  is  arrested,  but  this  generally  occurs 
only  when  some  irate  player  notifies  the  police 
that  he  "aint  been  done  right  by."  Numbers 
can  be  placed  in  innumerable  ways,  the  grocer, 
the  butcher,  the  confectioner,  the  waitress  at 
the  lunch  counter,  the  soda  clerk,  and  the  choir 
leader  all  collect  slips  for  the  number  bankers. 

People  look  everywhere  for  a  number  to  play. 


4  6  NEGRO  LIFE  IX  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

The  postman  passes,  some  addict  notes  the  num- 
ber on  his  cap  and  puts  ten  cents  on  it  for  that 
day.  A  hymn  is  announced  by  the  pastor  in 
church  and  all  the  members  in  the  congregation 
will  note  the  number  for  future  reference. 
People  dream,  each  dream  is  a  symbol  for  a 
number  that  can  be  ascertained  by  looking  in 
a  dream  book  for  sale  at  all  Harlem  news- 
stands. Street  car  numbers,  house  numbers, 
street  numbers,  chance  calculations — anything 
that  has  figures  on  it  or  connected  with  it  will 
give  some  player  a  good  number,  and  inspire 
him  to  place  much  money  on  it. 

There  is  slight  chance  to  win,  it  is  a  thousand 
to  one  shot,  and  yet  this  game  and  its  possible 
awards  have  such  a  hold  on  the  community 
that  it  is  often  the  cause  for  divorce,  murder, 
scanty  meals,  dispossess  notices  and  other  mis- 
fortunes. Some  player  makes  a  "hit"  for  one 
dollar,  and  receives  five  hundred  and  vforty 
dollars.  Immediately  his  acquaintances  anjd 
neighbors  are  in  a  frenzy  and  begin  staking 
large  sums  on  any  number  their  winning  friend 
happens  to  suggest. 

It  is  all  a  game  of  chance.  There  is  no  way 
to  figure  out  scientifically  or  otherwise  what 
digits  will  be  listed  in  the  clearing  house  re- 
ports.   Few  people  placing  fifty  cents  on  No. 


Ni£G'RO  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  47 


238  stop  to  rearize  now  many  other  combina- 
tions of  three  digits  are  liable  to  win.  One  can 
become  familiar  with  the  market's  slump  days 
and  fat  days,  but  even  then  the  digits  which 
determine  the  winning  number  could  be  almost 
anything. 

People  who  are  moral  in  every  other  respect, 
church  going  folk,  who  damn  drinking,  dancing, 
or  gambling  in  any  other  form,  will  play  the 
numbers.  For  some  vague  reason  this  game  is 
not  considered  as  gambling,  and  its  illegality 
gives  little  concern  to  any  one — even  to  the 
Harlem  police,  who  can  be  seen  slipping  into  a 
corner  cigar  store  to  place  their  number  for 
the  day  with  an  obliging  and  secretive  clerk. 

As  I  write  a  friend  of  mine  comes  in  with  a 
big  roll  of  money,  $540.  He  has  made  a  "hit." 
I  guess  I  will  play  fifty  cents  on  the  number  I 
found  stamped  inside  the  band  of  my  last  year's 
stra^v  hat. 

Scroll  down  Seventh  Avenue  on  a  spring  Sun- 
day afternoon.  Everybody  seems  to  be  well 
dressed.  The  latest  fashions  prevail,  and 
though  there  are  the  usual  number  of  folk  at- 
tired in  outlandish  color  combinations  and 
queer  styles,  the  majority  of  the  promenaders 
are  dressed  in  good  taste.  In  the  winter,  ex- 
pensive fur  coats  swathe  the  women  of  Har- 


4  8  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

lem's  Seventh  Avenue  as  they  swathe  the  pale 
face  fashion  plates  on  Fifth  Avenue  down  town, 
while  the  men  escorting  them  are  usually  sar- 
torially  perfect. 

How  is  all  this  well-ordered  finery  possible? 
Most  of  these  people  are  employed  as  menials — 
dish  washers,  elevator  operators,  porters,  wait- 
ers, red  caps,  longshoremen,  and  factory  hands. 
Their  salaries  are  notoriously  low,  not  many 
men  picked  at  random  on  Seventh  Avenue  can 
truthfully  say  that  they  regularly  earn  more 
than  $100  per  month,  and  from  this  salary  must 
come  room  rent,  food  and  other  of  life's  neces- 
sities and  luxuries.  How  can  they  dress  so 
well? 

There  are,  of  course,  the  installment  houses, 
considered  by  many  authorities  one  of  the  main 
economic  curses  of  our  present  day  civilization, 
and  there  are  numerous  people  who  run  ac- 
counts at  such  places  just  to  keep  up  a  front, 
but  these  folk  have  little  money  to  jingle  in 
their  pockets.  All  of  it  must  be  dribbled  out 
to  the  installment  collectors.  There  was  even 
one  chap  I  knew,  who  had  tot  pawTn  a  suit  he 
had  bought  on  the  installment  plan  in  order  to 
make  the  final  ten  dollar  payment  and  prevent 
the  credit  house  collector  from  garnisheeing  his 
wages.    And  it  will  be  found  that  the  majority 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 


of  the  Harlemites,  who  must  dress  well  on  a 
small  salary,  shun  the  installment  house  lee^fc- 
ers  and  patronize  the  "hot  men." 

"Hot  men"  sell  "hot  stuff,"  which  when, 
translated  from  Harlemese  into  English,  mean? 
merchandise  supposedly  obtained  illegally  and 
sold  on  the  q.  t.  far  below  par.  "Hot  men"  do  a 
big  business  in  Harlem.  Some  have  apartments 
fitted  out  as  showrooms,  but  the  majority  ped- 
dle their  goods  piece  by  piece  from  person  to 
person. 

"Hot  stuff"  is  supposedly  stolen  by  shop- 
lifters or  by  store  employes  or  by  organ 
gangs,  who  raid  warehouses  and  freight  yartfs. 
Actually,  most  of  the  "hot  stuff"  sold  in  Har- 
lem originally  comes  from  bankrupt  stores. 
Some  ingenious  group  of  people  make  a  prac- 
tice of  attending  bankruptcy  sales  and  by  buy- 
ing blocks  of  merchandise  get  a  great  deal  for 
a  small  sum  of  money.  This  merchandise  is 
then  given  in  small  lots  to  various  agents  in 
Harlem,  who  secretly  dispose  of  it. 

There  is  a  certain  glamour  about  buying 
stolen    goods    aside    from*   their  cheapr. 
Realizing  this,   "hot  men"  and  their  agents 
maintain  that  their  goods  are  stolen  whether 
thejt  are  or  not.    People  like  to  feel  that  i 
j re  breaking  the  law  and  when  they  are  getting 


-     NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

undeniable  bargains  at  the  same  time,  the 
temptation  becomes  twofold.  Of  course,  one 
e  rer  really  knows  whether  what  they  are  buy- 
ing lias  been  stolen  from  a  neighbor  next  door 

bought  from  a  defunct  merchant.  There 
been  many  instances  when  a  gentleman, 
glrolling  down  the  avenue  in  a  newly  acquired 

coat,  has  had  it  recognized  by  a  former 
owner,  and  found  himself  either  beaten  up  or 
behind  the  bars.  However,  such  happenings 
are  rare,  for  the  experienced  Harlemite  will 
buy  only  that  "hot  stuff"  which  is  obviously 
aot  secondhand. 

One  evening  I  happened  to  be  sitting  in  one 
of  the  private  reception  rooms  of  the  Harlem 
Y.  "W.  C.  A.  There  was  a  great  commotion  in 
the  adjoining  room,  a  great  coming  in  and  going 
It  seemed  as  if  every  girl  in  the  Y.  W.  C. 
A.  was  trying  to  crowd  into  that  little  room. 
Finally  the  young  lady  I  was  visiting  went  to 
investigate.  She  was  gone  for  about  fifteen 
minutes.  When  she  returned  she  had  on  a  new 
hat,  which  she  informed  me,  between  laughs 
at  the  bewildered  expressions  on  my  face,  she 
liad  obtained  from  a  "hot  man"  for  two  dollars. 
This  same  hat,  according  to  her,  would  cost  $10 
downtown  and  $12  on  125th  Street. 

I  placed  my  chair  near  the  door  and  watched 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  SI 


the  procession  of  young  women  entering  the 
room  bareheaded  and  leaving  with  new  head 
gear.  Finally  the  supply  was  exhausted  and  a 
perspiring  little  Jew  emerged,  his  pockets  filled 
with  dollar  bills.  I  discovered  later  that  thin 
man  was  a  store  keeper  in  Harlem,  who  had 
picked  up  a  large  supply  of  spring  hats  at  a 
bankruptcy  sale  and  stating  that  it  was  "hot 
stuff"  had  proceeded  to  sell  it  not  openly  in 
his  store,  but  sub  rosa  in  private  places. 

There  is  no  limit  to  the  "hot  man's"  supply 
or  the  variety  of  goods  he  offers.  One  can,  tt 
one  knows  the  ropes,  buy  any  article  of  wearing 
apparel  from  him.  And  in  addition  to  the  pro- 
fessional "hot  man"  there  are  always  the  shop- 
lifters and  thieving  store  clerks,  who  accost 
you  secretly  »and  eagerly  place  at  yourNdisposaj 
what  they  have  stolen. 

Hence  low  salaried  folk  in  Harlem  dress  well, 
and  Seventh  Avenue  is  a  fashionable  street 
crowded  with  expensively  dressed  people,  parad- 
ing around  in  all  their  "hot"  finery.  A  cartoon- 
ist in  a  recent  issue  of  one  of  the  Negro  month- 
lies depicted  the  following  scene:  A  number  of 
people  at  a  fashionable  dance  are  informed 
that  the  police  have  come  to  search  for  some 
individual  known  to  be  wearing  stolen  goods. 
Immediately  there  is  a  confused  and  hurried 


52  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

exodus  from  the  room  because  all  of  the  dancers 
present  were  arrayed  in  "hot  stuff." 

This,  of  course,  is  exaggerated.  There  are 
thousands,  of  well-dressed  people  in  Harlem  able 
to  be  well-dressed  not  because  they  patronize  a 
"hot  man,"  but  because  their  incomes  make  it 
possible.  But  there  are  a  mass  of  people,  work- 
ing for  small  wages,  who  make  good  use  of  the 
"hot  man,"  for  not  only  can  they  buy  their 
much  wanted  finery  cheaply,  but,  thanks  to  the 
obliging  "hot  man,"  can  buy  it  on  the  install- 
ment plan.  Under  the  circumstances,  who  cares 
about  breaking  the  law? 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEI 


VII.   THE  NEGRO  AND  THE  CHURCH 

The  Negro  in  America  has  always  support-} 
his  religious  institutions  even  though  he  would 
not  support  his  schools  or  business  enterprises. 
Migrating  to  the  city  has  not  lessened  his  devo- 
tion jto  religious  institutions  even  if  it  has 
lessened  his  religious  fervor.  He  still  donates 
a  portion  of  his  income  to  the  church,  and  the 
church  is  still  a  major  social  center  in  all 
Negro  communities. 

Harlem  is  no  exception  to  this  rule,  and  its 
finest  buildings  are  the  churches.  Their  at- 
tendance is  large,  their  prosperity  amazing. 
Baptist,  Methodist,  Episcopal,  Catholic,  Presby- 
terian, Seventh  Day  Adventist,  Spiritualist, 
Holy  Roller  and  Abyssinian  Jew — every  sect 
and  every  creed  with  all  their  innumerable  sub- 
divisions can  be  found  in  Harlem. 

The  Baptist  and  the  Methodist  churches  have 
the  largest  membership.  There  are  more  than 
a  score  of  each.  St.  Phillips  Episcopal  Church 
is  the  most  wealthy  as  well  as  one  of  the  oldest 
Negro  churches  in  New  York.  It  owns  a  great 
deal  of  Harlem  real  estate  and  was  one  of  lie 


54  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 

leading  factors  in  urging  Negroes  to  buy  prop- 
erty in  Harlem. 

There  are  few  new  church  buildings,  most 
uf  them  having  been  bought  from  white  con- 
gregations when  the  Negro  invaded  Harlem 
and  claimed  it  for  his  own.  The  most  notable 
of  the  second-hand  churches  are  the  Metro- 
politan Baptist  Church  at  128th  Street  and 
mih  Avenue,  Salem  M.  E.  Church  at  129th 
Street  and  Seventh  Avenue,  and  Mt.  Olive 
Baptist  Church  at  120th  Street  and  Lenox  Ave- 
nue. This  latter  church  has  had  a  varied  ca- 
reer.  It  was  first  a  synagogue,  then  it  was 
?  Id  to  white  Seventh  Day  Adventists  and 
finally  fell  into  its  present  hands. 

The   most   notable   new   churches   are  the 
xlbyssinian  Baptist  Church  on   138th  Street, 
Mother  Zion  on  137th  Street,  and  St.  Marks. 
7i:e  latter  church,  has  just  recently  been  fin- 
ished.   It  is  a  dignified  and  colossal  structure 
ipying  a  triangular  block  on  Edgecombe 
and  St.  Nicholas  Avenues  between  137th  and 
iSS'th    Streets.     It    is    the    latest    thing  in 
rches,   with  many   modern   attachments — 
gymnasium,  swimming  pool,  club  rooms,  Sun- 
school  quarters,  and  other  sub-auditoriums. 
When  it  was  formally  opened  there  was  a  gala 
dedication  week  to  celebrate' the  occasion.  Each 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  ds 

night  services  were  held  by  the  various  secret 
societies,  the  Elks,  the  Masons,  the  Knights  of 
Pythias,  the  Odd  Fellows,  and  others.  The  mem- 
bers of  every  local  chapter  of  the  various  or- 
ders turned  out  to  do  homage  to  the  new 
fice.  The  collection  proceeds  were  donated  to 
the  church. 

St.  Marks  goes  in  for  elaborate  ceremony 
quite  reminiscent  of  the  Episcopal  or  Roman 
Catholic  service.  The  choir  is  regaled  in  flow- 
ing robes  and  chants  hymns  by  Handel.  The 
pulpit  is  a  triumph  of  carving  and  wood  deco- 
ration.   There  is  more  ceremony  than  sermon. 

The  better  class  of  Harlemites  attends  the 
larger  churches.  Most  of  the  so-called  "die 
are  registered  as  "Episcopalians  at  St.  Phillips, 
which  is  the  religious  sanctum  of  the  socially 
elect  and  wealthy  Negroes  of  Harlem.  The 
congregation  at'^St.  Phillips  is  largely  mulatto. 
This  church  has  a  Parish  House  that  serves  as 
one  of  the  most  ambitious  and  important  social 
centers  in  Harlem.  It  supports  a  gymnasium 
that  produces  annually  a  first-class  basket  ball 
team,  an  art  sketch  class  that  is  both  large  and 
promising,  and  other  activities  of  interest  aild 
benefit  to  the  community. 

Every  Sunday  all  of  the  churches  are  packed, 
and  were  they  run  entirely  on  the  theatr: ical 


56  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLK>i 

plan  they  would  hang  out  the  S.  R.  0.  sign. 
No  matter  how  large  they  are  they  do  not  seem 
to  be  large  enough.  And  in  addition  to  these 
large  denominational  churches  there  are  many 
smaller  ones  also  crowded,  and  a  plethora  of 
our  law  sects,  ranging  from  Holy  Rollers  to 
Black  Jews  and  Moslems. 

The  Holy  Rollers  collect  in  small  groups  of 
oa  twenty-five  to  one  hundred  and  call  them- 
selves various  things.  Some  are  known  as  the 
Saints  of  God  in  Christ,  others  call  themselves 
members  of  the  Church  of  God  and  still  others 
call  themselves  Sanctified  Children  of  the  Holy 
Ghost.  Their  meetings  are  primitive  perform- 
ances. Their  songs  and  chants  are  lashing  to 
the  emotions.  They  also  practice  healing,  and, 
dnring  the  course  of  their  services,  shout  and 
dance  as  erotically  and  sincerely  as  savages 
around  a  jungle  fire. 

The  Black  Jews  are  a  sect  migrated  from 
Abyssinia.  Their  services  are  similar  to  those 
in  a  Jewish  Synagogue  only  they  are  of  a 
lower  order,  for  these  people  still  believe  in 
alchemy  and  practice  polygamy  when  they  can 
get  away  with  it.  Just  recently  a  group  of 
them  were  apprehended  by  agents  from  the 
Department  of  Justice  for  establishing  a  free 
love  farm  in  the  State  of  New  Jersey.  They 


XEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  57 

were  all  citizens  of  Harlem  and  had  induced 
many  young  Negro  girls  to  join  them. 

The  Mohammedans  are  beginning  to  send 
missionaries  to  work  among  Negroes  in  Amer- 
ica. Already  they  have  succeeded  in  getting 
enough  converts  in  Harlem,  Chicago,  St.  Louis 
and  Detroit  to  establish  mosques  in  these 
cities.  There  are  about  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  active  members  of  the  Mohamme- 
dan church  in  Harlem,  practicing  the  precepts 
of  the  Koran  under  the  leadership  of  an  Islamic 
missionary. 

The  Spiritualist  churches  also  thrive  in  Har- 
lem.  There  are  about  twenty-five  or  more  of 
their  little  chapels  scattered  about.  They  enjoy 
I  an  enormous  patronage  from  the  more  super- 
stitious, ignorant  classes.  The  leaders  of  the 
larger  ones  make  most  of  their  money  from 
w: :!re  clients,  who  drop  in  regularly  for  pri- 
vate sessions. 


5*  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 


VIII.   NEGRO  JOURNALISM  IN  HARLEM 

The  Harlem  Negro  owns,  publishes,  and  £ v im- 
ports five  local  weekly  newspapers.  These  pa- 
pers are  just  beginning  to  influence  Harlem 
thought  and  opinion.  For  a  long  time  they 
were  merely  purveyors  of  local  gossip  and 
scandal.  Now  some  of  them  actually  have  be- 
gun to  support  certain  issues  for  the  benefit 
of  the  community  and  to  cry  out  for  reforms 
in  the  regulation  journalistic  manner. 

For  instance,  The  New  York  Age,  which  is 
the  oldest  Negro  weekly  in  New  York,  has  1 
conducting  a  publicity  campaign  against  num- 
bers and  saloons.  These  saloons  are  to  this 
paper  as  unwelcome  a  Harlem  institution  as 
the  numbers.  Each  block  along  the  main 
streets  has  at  least  one  saloon,  maybe  two  or 
three.  They  are  open  affairs,  save  instead  pi 
calling  themselves  saloons,  they  call  them- 
selves cafes.  To  get  in  is  an  easy  matter.  One 
has  only  to  approach  the  door  and  look  at  a 
man  seated  on  a  box  behind  the  front  window, 
who  acknowledges  your  look  by  pulling  a  chain 
which  releases  a  bolt  on  the  door.  Once  id 
you  order  what  you  wish  from  an  old  fashioned 
bartender  and  stand  before  an  old-fashioned 
bar  with  a  brass  rail,  mirrors,  pictures,  spitr 
toons,  and  everything.  What  is  more,  they 
even  have  ladies'  rooms  in  the  rear. 

The  editor  of  The  New-  York  Age,  in  the 
process  of  conducting  his  crusade,  published 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  59 

the  addresses  of  all  these  saloons  and  urged 
that  they  be  closed.  The  result  of  his  cam- 
paign was  that  they  are  still  open  and  doing 
more  business  than  ever,  thanks  to  his  having 
Informed  people  where  they  were  located. 

At  first  glance  any  of  the  Harlem  newspapers 
give  one  the  impression  that  Harlem  is  a  hot- 
bed of  vice  and  crime.  They  smack  of  the 
tabloid  in  this  respect  and  should  be  consid- 
ered accordingly.  True,  there  is  vice  and  crime 
in  Harlem  as  there  is  in  any  community  where 
living  conditions  are  chaotic  and  crowded. 

For  instance,  there  are  110  Negro  women  in 
Harlem  for  every  100  Negro  men.  Sixty  and 
six-tenths  percent  of  them  are  regularly  em- 
ployed. This,  according  to  social  service  re- 
ports, makes  women  cheap,  and  conversely  I 
suppose  makes  men  expensive.  Anyway  there 
are  a  great  number  of  youths  and  men  who 
are  either  wholly  or  partially  supported  by 
single  or  married  women.  -  These  male  para- 
si:^,  known  as  sweetbacks,  dress  well  and 
spend  their  days  standing  on  street  corners, 
playing  pool,  gambling  and  looking  for  some 
other  "fish"  to  aid  in  their  support.  This  is 
cc  r  sidered  by  some  an  alarming  condition  inas- 
much as  many  immigrant  youths  from  foreign 
countries  and  rural  southern  American  districts 
naturally  inclined  to  be  lazy,  think  that  it  is 
smart  and  citified  to  be  a  parasite  and  do 
almost  anything  in  order  to  live  without 
working. 

The  newspapers  of  Harlem  seldom  speak  of 
tli:-  condition,  but  their  headlines  give  elo- 
quent testimony  to  the  results,  with  their  re- 


60  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 


ports  of  gun  play,  divorce  actions  (and  in  New 
York  State  there  is  only  one  ground  for  di- 
vorce)  and  brick-throwing  parties.  These  con- 
ditions are  magnified,  of  course,  by  proximity, 
and  really  are  not  important  at  all  when  the 
whole  vice  and  crime  situation  in  greater  New 
York  is  taken  under  consideration. 

To  return  to  the  newspapers,  The  Negro 
World  is  the  official  organ  of  the  Garvey 
Movement.  At  one  time  it  was  one  of  the 
most  forceful  weeklies  among  Negroes.  Now 
it  has  little  life  or  power;  its  life-giving  men- 
tor, Marcus  Garvey,  being  in  Atlanta  Federal 
Prison.  Its  only  interesting  feature  is  the 
weekly  manifesto  Garvey  issues  from  his 
prison  sanctum,  urging  his  followers  to  re- 
main faithful  to  the  cause  and  not  fight  among 
themselves  while  he  is  kept  away  from  them. 

The  Amsterdam  Neivs  is  the  largest  and 
most  progressive  Negro  weekly  published  in 
Harlem.  It,  like  all  of  its  contemporaries,  is 
conservative  in  politics  and  policy,  but  it  does 
feature  the  work  of  many  of  the  leading  Negro 
journalists  and  has  the  most  forceful  editorial 
page  of  the  group,  even  if  it  does  believe  that 
most  of  the  younger  Negro  artists  are  "bad 
New  Negroes." 

The  Xew  York  News  is  a  political  sheet,  af- 
fecting the  tabloid  form.  The  Tattler  is  a  scan- 
dal sheet.  It  specializes  in  personalities  and 
theatrical  and  sport  news. 


NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  61 


IX.    THE  NEW  NEGRO 

Harlem  has  been  called  the  center  of  the 
American  Negroes'  cultural  renaissance  and 
the  inecca  of  the  New  Negro.  If  this  is  so,  it 
so  only  because  Harlem  is  a  part  of  New 
York,  the  cultural  and'  literary  capital  of 
America.  And  Harlem  becomes  the  mecca  of 
the  so-called  New  Negro  only  because  he  imag- 
ines that  once  there  he  can  enjoy  the  cultural 
contact  and  intellectual  stimulation  necessary 
for  his  growth. 

This  includes  the  young  Negro  writer  who 
comes  to  Harlem  in  order  to  be  near  both 
patrons  and  publishers  of  literature,  and  the 
young  Negro  artist  and  musician  who  comes 
to  Harlem  in  order  to  be  near  the  most  reputa- 
ble artistic  and  musical  institutions  in  the 
country. 

These  folk,  along  with  the  librarians  em- 
ployed at  the  Harlem  Branch  of  the  New  York 
Public  Library,  a  few  of  the  younger,  more 
cultured  professional  men  and  women  and  the 
school  teachers,  who  can  be  found  in  the  gram- 
mar and  high  schools  all  over  the  city,  con- 
stitute the  Negro  intelligentsia.  This  group 
is  sophisticated  and  small  and  more  a  part  of 
New  York's  life  than  of  Harlem's.  Its  members 
are  accepted  as  social  and  intellectual  equals 
among  whites  downtown,  and  can  be  found  at 
informal  and  formal  gatherings  in  any  of  the  five 
boroughs  that  compose  greater  New  York.  Har- 


62  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLE1' 


lem  to  most  of  them  is  just  a  place  of  rest 
dence;  they  are  not  "fixed"  there  as  are  1  a 
majority  of  Harlem's  inhabitants. 

Then  there  are  the  college  youngsters 
local   intellectuals,   whose  prototypes  can 
found  in  any  community.   These  people  plan  to 
attend  lectures  and  concerts,  given  under  tfc 
auspices  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  Y.  W.  C.  A., 
churches,  and  public  school  civic  centers.  They 
are  the  people  who  form  intercollegiate  so  f- 
ties, who  stage   fraternity  go-to-school  cam- 
paigns, who  attend  the  course  of  lectures  pre- 
sented by  the  Harlem  Branch  of  the  New  Y<  ;k 
Public  Library,  during  the  winter  months,  and 
who  frequent  the  many  musical  and  literary 
entertainments  given  by  local  talent  in  HarKni 
auditoriums. 

Harlem  is  crowded  with  such  folk.  The  three 
great  major  educational  institutions  of  New 
York,  Columbia,  New  York  University  and  tl le 
College  of  the  City  of  New  York,  have  a  large 
Negro  student  attendance.  Then  there  are 
many  never-will-be-top-notch  literary,  artis*:c 
and  intellectual  strivers  in  Harlem  as  there 
are  all  over  New  York.  Since  the  well  adver- 
tised "literary  renaissance,"  it  is  almost  a 
Negro  Greenwich  Village  in  this  respect.  Every 
other  person  one  meets  is  writing  a  novel,  a 
poem  or  a  drama.  And  there  is  seemingly  e  a 
end  to  artists  who  do  oils,  pianists  who  pound 
out  Rachmaninoff's  Prelude  in  C  Sharp  Minor, 
and  singers,  with  long  faces  and  rolling  eyes, 
who  sing  spirituals. 


EGRO  LI  IE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM  63 


X.   HARLEM— MECCA  OF  THE  NEW  NEGRO 

Harlem,  the  so-called  citadel  of  Negro  achieve- 
ment in  the  New  World,  the  alleged  mecca  of 
the  New  Negro  and  the  advertised  center  of 
colored  America's  cultural  renaissance.  Har- 
lem, a  thriving  black  city,  pulsing  with  vivid 
passions,  alive  with  colorful  personalities,  and 
packed  with  many  types  and  classes  of  people. 

Harlem  is  a  dream  city  pregnant  with  wide- 
awake realities.  It  is  a  masterpiece  of  con- 
tradictory elements  and  surprising  types.  There 
is  no  end  to  its  versatile  presentation  of  people, 
personalities  and  institutions.  It  is  a  mad 
medley. 

There  seems  to  be  no  end  to  its  numerical 
and  geographical  growth.  It  is  spreading 
north,  east,  south  and  west.  It  is  slowly  push- 
ing beyond  the  barriers  imposed  by  white  peo- 
ple It  is  slowly  uprooting  them  from  their 
present  homes  in  the  near  vicinity  of  Negro 
Harlem  as  it  has  uprooted  them  before.  There 
must  be  expansion  and  Negro  Harlem  is  too 
much  a  part  of  New  York  to  remain  sluggish 
and  still  while  all  around  is  activity  and  expan- 
sion. As  New  York  grows,  so  will  Harlem 
grow.  As  Negro  America  progresses,  so  will 
Negro  Harlem  progress. 

New  York  is  now  most  liberal.  There  is 
little  racial  conflict,  and  there  have  been  nc 
inter-racial  riots  since  the  San  Juan  Hiii  days. 
The  question   is  will  the  relations  between 


64  NEGRO  LIFE  IN  NEW  YORK'S  HARLEM 


New  York  Negro  and  New  York  white  :. 
always  remain  as  tranquil  as  they  are  today? 
No  one  knows,  and  once  in  Harlem  one  seldom 
cares,  for  the  sight  of  Harlem  gives  any  N  - 
gro  a  feeling  of  great  security.  It  is  too  large 
and  too  complex  to  seem  to  be  affected  in  any 
way  by  such  a  futile  thing  as  race  prejudice. 

There  is  no  typical  Harlem  Negro  as  there 
is  no  typical  American  Negro.  There  are  too 
many  different  types  and  classes.  White,  yel- 
low, brown  and  black  and  all  the  intervening 
shades.  North  American,  South  American. 
African  and  Asian;  Northerner  and  Southerner : 
high  and  low;  seer  and  fool — Harlem  holds 
them  all,  and  strives  to  become  a  homogene* 
community  despite  its  motley  hodge-podge  of 
incompatible  elements,  and  its  self-nurtured  or 
outwardly  imposed  limitations. 


E.  HALDEMAN -JULIUS 

Editor 
LITTLE  BLUE  BOOKS 


